Cell-cultured meat: Lessons from GMO adoption and resistance

What is it about?

Which strategies can hasten or delay the adoption of novel food technologies? We examine how genetically-modified (GM) food became an object of controversy in the United States and Europe. Then, we present lessons suggested by the history of GMOs for cell-cultured meat adoption. The history of GMOs suggests at least eleven concrete lessons for cultured meat adoption that remain under-discussed. This paper's findings diverge in several ways from received wisdom on cultured meat adoption. We argue, among other things, that genetic engineering firms understood their work to be humanitarian and environmentally-friendly and so were unprepared for popular backlash, that technology adoption is more readily affected by consumer activism when buyers in a supply chain exert more pressure on sellers than the reverse, and that focusing on the positive aspects of a technology is more successful for encouraging its adoption than responding to negative perceptions.

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash